A few months ago there was an official announcement made about a new gym opening up in London, ON, in partnership with the Guelph Grotto. For those who are interested in an update, we are excited to announce that we have secured a location close to the intersection of Highbury and Oxford! Can't beat that location! We are in discussion with the property owners and should begin construction on the new facility within the next month or so. We can't wait to tell you more about our exciting plans.

Awesome! I can't wait to not be forced to go to a bowling alley when I want to climb. I'm going climb at your gym everyday and I will make sure I tell my friends. Please keep this thread updated as to when you start building and an estimated completion date. I know your gym will be a great success, this is excellent news. Good luck with the construction! :)

I'm in the same boat DRKWOLF519. I used to climb off and on years ago but the lack of quality gyms in town severly hampered my ability to train and to get my friends to come out and give it a try. Its great to hear a gym that is run for climbers by climbers is on its way. I really like what the grotto has to offer in Guelph. If its anything close to that, I would be impressed. I too, would need a climbing partner, although I plan to do a lot of bouldering, but what- ever climbing is climbing and I'm pumped.

I emailed the Grotto to see if I could get some addtional info and this is all that I got back....

"Final details should be in place in the next few weeks, but currently the opening date for the London Climbing Company is slated for Jan/Feb 2013. YES! We are opening a 9,000+ square foot premiere facility. Updates soon"

Adam The Guelph Grotto Climbing Co.

Its official they are doing it. I just hoped for some juicy details on location, website and such.

Sorry to keep all of you in the dark for so long. We’re going to share what juicy details we can, though they probably aren’t as juicy as you’d like.

The space we announced in the spring (which was so awesome it still hurts to think about) got pulled out from under us when the city demanded that we do $200,000 in landscaping upgrades to the parking lot (grading, paving, and installing sewer connections). As neither the landlord nor us could afford that it sent us back to the search, without the city giving us a building permit the landlord would not do the construction we’d planned.

After a couple of failed negotiations for other properties we’ve reached a deal on a new space. We’re excited again, 24’ to 32’ clear in a good central location. However it requires rezoning. We’ve submitted the paperwork and the planning department has scheduled a meeting with us next week where we will find out if they will support our application (what conversations we’ve had with them seem promising, but we’re still nervous). From the meeting next week the application shuffles through various departments until it eventually is approved at council about 4 months from now. Unfortunately that really is the speed at which the process works, and at this point it is out of our hands.

It’s been a long road for us and for you. We thank you all for your patience. We we’re a bit gun shy about going public with new info after getting the runaround on the previous property and didn’t want to announce anything more until we had certainty. If anyone wants to receive updates directly please PM this account. I’ll add your contact info to any announcements.

Thank you thank you thank you to all the people who’ve called and emailed us with your enthusiasm, we are really stoked to be bringing climbing back to London and every day of delay drives us bonkers.

The Grotto Team

TLDR: First building deal killed by city regulations after lease signed, newest building deal in rezoning process.

Thanks for the update. Its too bad that our citys' bureaucratic red tape has caused so much turmoil in finding a good facility to start building. Glad you guys are putting in all the hard work and haven't given up. Can't wait for the grand opening.

It's been a crazy process that hopefully someday we can share. Everyone at the city has been super nice and professional but can only work within their regulations and some of the regulations make it really hard for our kind of business since our use is considered commercial but our space needs are industrial. We also want to make the best gym possible and not settle.

We had our meeting with the city. We are...cautiously optimistic. They did not say no which is key. They didn't say absolutely yes either (they can't really). The general tone was positive with a few outstanding questions. We've a bunch more paperwork to submit now.